


Bond Shock

by Indehed



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Time, M/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24239779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indehed/pseuds/Indehed
Summary: When soulmates meet, there's an instant connection, even if they aren't fully aware. But the universe will make its plan known and won't let you shirk the bonding process. But in modern times, there are ways to control the bond, dampen it, slow it down. It's not recommended, and it can be expensive, but some people do it. And so long as the bonding process is carefully controlled from then on, there shouldn't be any problems.Detective Danny Williams is called to the house of a retired HPD detective one morning and saves him from terrorists. He and John McGarrett become friends, bonding over parenthood even if they are a generation apart. John invites Danny over for dinner once his son is home as thanks for saving his life. When Danny shakes hand with the Navy SEAL he meets, there's a jolt inside him that he dismisses as heartburn. But in the coming days he begins to get sick and, swear to god if Steve brought home some foreign flu, he was going to punch him in the face.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 117
Kudos: 592





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There's no Wo Fat in this universe. The Hesse brothers are just 'regular' arms dealers, Sang Min is just a 'common or garden' human trafficker. Doris died in a car crash. Steve's life has the chance to be somewhat simpler going forward from when he and Danny meet. If you can call dealing with Danny Williams 'simple'.

_"So, do you think companies like yours make a difference?"_

_"We certainly like to think so or we wouldn't exist. Soul mates until the last century were always an enigma, always rare. We've seen a spike in soul bond levels and we can see them grow exponentially. Yes, we can attribute that to the smaller world we live in... where matches separated by oceans and continents have a better chance of meeting. Our company, and others like us, use the most up to date medical and scientific advances to aid us in finding these matches."_

_"We know science has identified markers that bring matches together. What is it you're actually using?"_

_"Well, you're correct, science has proven that there are similarities in the makeup of two people destined to be. The myth that soul mates are really just one person torn in half and in a search to find each other really does have merit, in those terms. For example, we know soul mates share the same blood type - that was discovered decades ago. These days we also know that soul mates are matches when it comes to things like organ donation, for example - their bodies are completely compatible."_

_"But not for procreation."_

_"No, not necessarily, but that's not just from matches if they're same-sex, it can also be from infertility. But carrying on from your earlier question - we can't just ask people what they like in the way that conventional dating agencies would. After all, soul mates can have differences, one person can like something the other doesn't, there might not even be the expected physical attraction that can be instant between many people."_

_"That's a diplomatic way of saying that 'love at first sight' isn't what brings soul mates together."_

_"Well, maybe. After all, it truly is love at first sight when you consider the physical implications, but it can be from someone unexpected... male when you thought your leanings were more towards female, or a blonde when you thought you liked brunettes, tall for short, all sorts of things like that. So we can't rely on preference or personality quite so much. We concentrate on the science."_

_"And what is the success rate? You said, as we all know from various reports and news articles in more recent years about the upturn in matches, but do you get results your way?"_

_"We do. That's not to say we would ever guarantee them, we can't do that. But we'll do what we can to introduce you to compatible people all over the world and see what happens from there."_

*  
"Bunch of crap," Danny lifted the remote and switched off the TV, continuing to mumble under his breath about stupid soul agencies gouging people of money. Only those who could afford it could find their matches in far-flung countries - the cost of the medical tests was one thing, but once you were given potential matches it was up to you to provide funds between the two of you to give it a go and try to meet up. 

Imagine the possible success rate if you could find out if it really was your soul mate over video chat.

Not that Danny put any stock in soul mates. He'd never known any couple who was a real soul match. Sure, the government figures said it was on the rise but that didn't mean it was prevalent. He only knew of his 4x great grandparents having been one, but that was so long ago he had no idea if it was true or just family legend. And his relatives now and his friends back in Jersey - nothing. All just ‘regular’ couples.

Though he wished Rachel had been his soul mate because then they wouldn't be in their current situation - divorced, in Hawaii, and talking to each other mostly through lawyers. And the only reason he still spoke to her at all was because of Grace, but he'd suffer through arguments with Rachel happily if it meant he got to spend more time with his little girl.

He selected a dark grey tie and slipped it around his neck, dodging out of his bathroom and to the kitchen space where he could hear the toast that had popped up. He grabbed the butter, spreading it quickly and keeping the toast in his mouth as he finished getting dressed before grabbing his gun, badge, wallet and keys.

He left his meager apartment quickly - he was picking up Grace to get her to school and if he managed to be there a decent amount of time early, she should hopefully be ready and he'd get some extra minutes with her before dropping her off.

*

Along with Meka, they were making decent progress on a case. It was early in the morning and he'd beaten his partner into the precinct due to the school run being surprisingly easy along with Rachel being particularly cordial today.

He had a coffee in hand and had just arrived at his desk when the Captain came tearing out of his office and ordered Danny to get his ass to some retired Detective's house because there was trouble. He said something about a special coded alert the two had set up but that meant nothing to Danny, all he knew was there was a threat to a cop's life and he and a bunch of squad cars were to get to the man's house ASAP before something went wrong.

By the time the dust settled at the house and Danny felt he had a moment to relax, there were terrorists dead on the floor and a uniformed officer was untying the old man while Danny picked up a cell phone from the ground.

He could hear the edge of fear in the voice on the other end of the line. "Hello?"

"Hello?! Who am I talking to?"

"I'm Detective Danny Williams, HPD."

"Where’s my father? Is he okay? What's going on?"

"Your father," Danny repeated, understanding that trace of panic he was hearing. "John McGarrett is here, he just needs a minute. The men who tried to hurt him are no longer a threat."

"Detective Williams? That's your name? Thank you. Can I speak to my father?"

"Yes, of course. John?" he got the man's attention and passed the cell phone to him. He watched for a moment as the older man's face lit up with a smile at being able to reassure his son that he was okay. Whatever had been going on, the son had been in the middle of it and had full knowledge of what had been happening from wherever he was. Danny moved aside to let the men have their conversation and instead began to piece everything together based on what he could see.

By the positions of the terrorists, the way John had been tied up - hell the fact that it was _terrorists_ that had broken into the man's home and threatened him - there was something big going on here and he didn't believe John was at the center of it.

"No, Steve, just take care of yourself and be careful… no, you don't have to come here if you've got more import-… okay, okay, I look forward to it. Bye, son," John lowered the phone from his ear and took a glance around the house. His eyes settled on Danny's curious ones. "My son is in the Navy," he said.

"Ah," Danny answered and waved around at the mess and the bodies and the arriving coroners. "This was about him."

John nodded. "You worked that out."

"I like to think I'm a half-decent detective," Danny answered. "They didn't kill you, not straight away and they had him, I assume on assignment with the Navy, on the other end of the phone. That means they wanted something."

"My son has captured a high profile arms dealer," despite his ordeal, John McGarrett looked pretty okay beyond the bruising and the sweat and the small amount of blood trailing down his face from a head wound. He kicked the legs of one of the terrorists. "This man was his brother. It's safe to say no one is getting released today. We don't negotiate with terrorists."

"You would have died."

McGarrett put a hand on Danny's shoulder. "Do you have kids, Detective Williams?"

"A little girl."

"Then you know that if your child was part of an equation that meant someone might have to die. You'd volunteer to be that person."

"That I would. Without hesitation," Danny said back and slung an arm around McGarrett's shoulder. "You need to see a paramedic. You might have a concussion."

They wandered out of the house, arm in arm. "So Tanaka got my message," John said.

"I have no idea what that was, but apparently he did or I wouldn't be here right now."

"We go way back. Tanaka and I were on the same organized crime task force for a while in the 90s. We set up a system back then in case anyone ever tried to take us out. I managed to get a text message out to him just before Hesse finished breaking down the door."

"What was the message?" Danny asked, curiosity striking as the older man recounted his story.

"Chicken salad," he said as he laughed a little.

Danny raised his eyebrows as he got McGarrett to sit on the bumper of the ambulance. "Wouldn't it have been easier to simply write 'help'? I mean… it's shorter."

McGarrett laughed harder. "I used it before, a long time ago. I remember my son asking me that same question when he found out about it."

*

Danny had stayed with John a while longer, ostensibly to make sure he got a witness statement, but he was beginning to like the guy and since his house was currently a crime scene, he tried to help distract him from what would happen next.

"I'd offer to let you stay with me but I've not got a spare bed. Actually, I've not got a bed at all. Prices in Hawaii are insane and I'm still paying my crappy lawyers from Jersey."

"Wife cleaned you out in the divorce, huh?"

"That and the custody hearings. Now I gotta try and get back on my feet on this island," Danny said as he nursed a beer in the Hilton's bar. John had decided that since his house was a mess and there was no way it was getting cleaned up in the near future, that he'd spend a couple of nights at the hotel while the cleaning company did their job.

"The things we do for our kids, right?" John clinked his beer bottle to Danny's in a toast.

"I know I gotta find a better place. Both of us sleeping on fold-outs isn't great, I know that. But I figure on a cop's salary I gotta wait maybe a year or two before I can really think about getting something better. And I've always got that vague hope that Rachel will see sense and we can all go home."

"You don't like it here," John said, not really a question.

Danny waved his head from side to side, considering. "No, I don't like it here. It's not home."

"It's very different from New Jersey, that's for sure, oh, excuse me," John said as his phone began to ring. "Hello?… Steve, why are you calling again, is everything okay?… I'm staying at the Hilton for a few days while they finish processing the house and I can get everything cleaned up again… that's the music, I'm just in the hotel bar with Danny… Detective Williams, yes… well, he saved my life the least I can do is buy him a beer… just send me the details and I'll come pick you up… okay, bye, son."

"I take it everything went fine on his end," Danny said. That the guy was alive would seem to prove that. John had already filled him in a bit more on what he knew of his son's mission, even though that was solely from today's events as his son's missions were often classified.

"The other Hesse brother is dead, too. Good riddance, if you ask me. Steve's coming home on leave for a visit. Should be here by Wednesday."

"How long's he been away from home?"

"He doesn't get back often, even when he is on leave. And my daughter is on the mainland in LA, so sometimes he spends his leave with her and my sister. Or he just goes off with his buddies…"

"Something wrong?" Danny asked as John tapered off.

"I don't see much of him but I know something's happened. Something more than Victor Hesse showing up in Hawaii. I still know some other people in the Navy, I'm gonna make some calls tomorrow, see if I can get to the bottom of it, classified or not."

"The things we do for our kids," Danny repeated and John smiled at him.

"You know, if your place is really that bad, I got a spare bed in my hotel room, you're welcome to it."

"Thanks, man, but that's okay," Danny said. It was a bit weird that a man he'd just met that day would offer to let him stay in a hotel room with him. "I should head off. Got an early start. Thanks for the beer."

"Thanks for the company," John replied. "I'm going to be at the precinct tomorrow. Do some follow up and see Tanaka. I might see you there."

"Sure," Danny said and shook the man's hand before leaving.

It was funny. John McGarrett wasn't native but he was plenty Hawaiian. Most people Danny met were put off by his manner and his dislike of the place but John seemed to understand him better. It was refreshing. He was certainly one of the good guys and Danny found himself hoping to see him again, if only for some decent conversation over another beer to make things feel just a little more normal around here.

*

As predicted, Danny had been at the precinct when John came by and after speaking with Tanaka, he invited Danny to lunch.

They got along really well. Danny talked more about Grace and what it was like for both of them being on the island. John talked a bit more about his own family - losing his wife in such a bad way, his kids being away from the island. How proud he was of them. He missed them fiercely, though - Danny could see it in his eyes.

And he showed his worry for his son as he filled Danny in on what his friend - some guy named 'Joe' - had been able to tell him about what had been going on recently. Turned out that Steve's best friend in the SEALs who had gone through training with him and who was on the same team as him, had been killed recently on a mission. Top that off with almost hearing his father killed on the other end of a phone and it was the Navy who had suggested Steve take a couple of weeks of leave. It sounded to Danny like Steve was a workaholic and the kind of guy who felt like his whole life was a mission and took the weight of the world on his shoulders. Losing his mom as a teenager was probably the root cause along with a healthy dose of family honor, considering he apparently came from a line of Navy men.

Danny felt for the guy even though they'd never met and he hoped that he and John would be able to reconnect when he arrived home.

John paid and once again cited Danny as being his lifesaver as the reason. Danny told him that excuse only lasted so long and next time, the beers were on him. After telling him he'd hold him to it, John said his goodbyes.

It was a few days later and Danny hadn't heard from the guy. He figured the man was busy cleaning his house and preparing for his son's return and he didn't actually expect to hear from him much at all if ever, but then his phone rang.

"Hi, Danny, it's John McGarrett. Listen, Steve's arrived home and I wondered if you'd like to come by the house for dinner. We'd both like to thank you for everything."

"We've been over this, John, there's no need to thank me for doing my job and you already bought me lunch."

"Come on, Danny. I'd like you to meet him, y'know, you're both the same age so you probably have a few things in common."

"Thing is, Wednesdays are when I get Grace so I'm picking her up after school…"

"Right," John said, reminding himself that Danny had told him this before. "Bring her along. The more the merrier. And you can stay at the house overnight. Grace can sleep in Mary's old room, you take mine and I can stay on the couch."

"You can't sleep on the couch in your own house, John."

"I'd normally offer you Steve's old room, but he's in there himself. It's just one night and it gets you out of that apartment of yours and off the futon so please, do me a favor, and come to dinner."

"Fine, fine, I'll come along. I'm sure Grace would prefer a home-cooked meal as opposed to another take out pizza. And don't even get me started on the fact that we've tried about ten different places so far and all the pizza on this island has sucked."

He could hear John laughing on the other end of the line. "We'll see you both this evening."


	2. Chapter 2

"So someone died here?" Grace asked as they got out the car and headed to the door.

Danny instantly regretted the way he'd been telling Grace how he knew John. "Well, kind of," Danny answered noncommittally. "But they're not here now, sweetie. And the people who died were all bad guys who were trying to hurt John and the other police."

"It's okay, dad. I don't believe in ghosts," she told him as she reached for his hand.

They rang the doorbell and John answered with a big welcoming smile. Peering into the house, Danny could see the cleanup crew had done a great job. "You must be Grace. Your dad talked my ear off non-stop about you when I last saw him."

"Hi," Grace answered.

"Come on in, we're grilling on the lanai. I hope you like steaks."

"We love steaks," Danny answered for both of them as he watched Grace look around the place as if trying to work out where the bad guys had been killed. "Oh, wait. I brought beer and I left it in the car. I'll just go grab it."

"No problem, I can entertain Grace for a few minutes. We can go take a look out back, it leads right down to the ocean."

"Really?" Grace's eyes lit up and she followed John.

By the time Danny dropped off the beers onto the kitchen table and then followed the others out into the backyard, he didn't think to look around for anyone else. But as he made his way closer to the water, he realized just what it was that John and Grace were watching.

A man strode out of the waves in a pair of blue swim shorts, water dripping down over his body. Danny was secure enough to admit that this guy was hot and that if the way he'd walked out of the water had been in slow motion, it would have made quite the impact on anyone watching.

The man smiled as he bumped knuckles with Grace and John handed him a towel to wipe himself down.

Danny approached and the other man looked up. It seemed to take a moment for the guy to register Danny's presence, it was like he was stuck on pause for just a millisecond before he held his hand out.

"You must be Danny," he said. "I'm Steve."

"Right, John's son." As their hands connected it was like some kind of spark ran through Danny's arm and reverberated through his body. There was a warmth left behind inside him; the result of the lightning strike to his heart. He absently ran a hand over his chest, unsure of what had just happened. "Thanks for the invite."

"Dad seems to have taken a real liking to you. He's always been a good judge of character," Steve answered while looking at Danny with a lot of curiosity. "I'm sorry, have we met before?"

"I don't think so. How could we, right?"

"Right. Of course. I just get this feeling that's… familiar. Or something."

"Well, we did talk on the phone. Albeit briefly," Danny said and John patted his arm.

"I remember," Steve said with an absent smile on his face then collected himself. "I'm going to go shower and get dressed. I was sure I had time before you both arrived, I must have been out in the water longer than I thought. I won't take long."

Danny let Steve pass him by and then he and Grace got to talking with John again as they offered to lend a hand getting the last of dinner set up only for John to rebuke the offer and order them to sit and relax as they were guests.

Danny didn't know why, but as he sat in one of the chairs, he couldn't help but look up towards the house again and to the second floor. He thought he caught a glimpse of Steve up there. He didn't want to stare, but at the same time, he kept feeling like he was being watched.

When Steve reappeared, he was carrying beers for the three men and an apple juice for Grace. They all sat down for dinner together, with Steve sitting opposite Danny. Dinner was filled with light conversation and Danny was proud that the McGarrett men showed so much interest in Grace, and he was proud that his little girl was so eager to talk with them and settled into it like she'd known them forever.

She was a great judge of character and Danny rarely saw her trust easily, so it felt remarkable that she was so talkative in their presence. Until, of course, she was worn out from the long day and had begun to slump in her seat.

"To the monkey cages?!" Steve laughed as Danny wound up his story.

"He was causing a disturbance, I was doing my civic duty!" Danny laughed back.

"Weren't you all of eight years old?"John asked, laughing just as hard as the younger men as Danny recounted the tale of how he always wanted to be a cop.

"Nine," Danny began to settle and wiped his eyes. "They were plastic cuffs. And I went back for him, he was fine."

"So you were always a cop," Steve said, a little bit of awe in his voice which Danny felt was strange coming from a Navy SEAL.

"Just like you were always going to be in the Navy," John pointed out to Steve, pulling him in for a little bit of ribbing. “In your blue pajamas with the anchors on them.”

“They were perfectly normal pajamas. And I was five,” Steve pointed out as they continued to laugh.

Danny looked down at Grace. "I think it's time I got her somewhere more comfortable."

"Mary's room is the first on the right at the top of the stairs. Do you need a hand?" John asked Danny but he waved him off then bent to carefully pick the little girl up.

It didn't take him long to get her settled into the bed. She stirred only briefly as he took her shoes and socks off and got her under the covers. As he made his way back downstairs he heard part of the McGarrett men's conversation - something about Steve taking something with John saying he'd told him earlier that he should and maybe now he'd had time to think about it he might change his mind.

"She's out like a light," Danny said as he returned and took his seat at the table. While he'd been upstairs, the McGarretts had cleared up, leaving only the drinks behind that they were all nursing.

"I'm surprised she lasted as long as she did," John said. "It is getting late. Bedtime for little girls. And I think the bedtime of old crotchety men. You boys stay out here and drink up, I'm just going to tidy the kitchen a little bit then hit the hay. Danny - I looked out some pillows and a blanket for the couch, since you so annoyingly kept refusing to take my bed."

"I could never take the bed of a crotchety old man," Danny said and Steve laughed as he pressed the beer bottle to his lips. "It's bad karma."

"I'll see you boys in the morning," John waved and then headed inside.

Steve and Danny relaxed in the evening atmosphere, somehow already incredibly comfortable in each others' presence as they watched the waves coming in and out.

"Is it always that loud?" Danny asked.

"Is what always so loud?" Steve asked, confused.

"The waves. That's loud, right? You don't think that's loud? The way they keep crashing over and over…"

Steve shook his head in amusement. "Some people think that's soothing."

"I swear to god if it's like that all night I don't think I'll be getting any sleep."

"It's strange isn't it?" Steve suddenly changed the subject with a wistful voice.

"What?"

"The way things work out. You moved out here from New Jersey to follow your kid after the divorce. A place you actively dislike and would never have chosen to come to of your own free will. Probably not even on vacation. Then my dad is in trouble because of my mission. And if it wasn't for you being out here, he'd be dead right now."

"Tanaka sent me here. And there were a bunch of uniformed officers here, too," Danny reminded him. "It could have been anyone who saved your dad."

"But _you_ took out Victor Hesse. _You_ picked up the phone to talk to me. It just seems strange to me how people meet. Connect. That kind of thing."

Danny sat back in his chair and regarded Steve carefully. "You're a philosophical drunk aren't you," he said. "What's out there, what's the meaning of life… it's 42, by the way."

Both men chuckled. "And which kind of drunk are you?" Steve asked.

"I fluctuate between sullen and funny. Clearly right now it's the latter," he said. "But if I switched to drinking whiskey it would get real depressing around here, real fast."

"You got a lot to be depressed about?"

"Like you said," Danny looked at him. "I came to a place I hate to be with my daughter. The few hours I get to spend with her each week are the only highlight I get on this miserable rock. So yeah, I got plenty to be morose over. And my brother knows it all too well. He's the only thing that kept me from becoming a cliche when Rachel and I first broke up. I turned to the bottle every night and he came round to my crappy motel room _every night_ to talk me down, to try and build me up… I miss him. I miss all of my family. Out here… I'm alone."

"You really haven't been able to connect with people on the island?"

"They call me that name… what is it?"

"Oh, haole," Steve nodded his head. "Outsider."

"That's the one."

"Well, my dad clearly likes you. Maybe you saving his life was a bit of a turning point for you."

They both fell quiet again and Danny was acutely aware he'd brought the mood down and he had no idea how to salvage it. "Maybe uh, maybe it is late."

"Yeah," Steve took the cue. "Time to turn in."

*

He was right about being unable to sleep. The waves were definitely a factor but not the only one. It was, however, the factor he was focusing on because he woke from a light sleep at about 2 am with a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't shake.

He'd had some kind of a nightmare but at the same time, it didn't feel like his. The situation was foreign to him, the faces unknown yet something inside him thought of them as friends and there was a mournful feeling. One of regret. And it was tinged with fear and anger.

He was left feeling confused and apprehensive and the only thing he could concentrate on was the rhythmic annoyance of the waves and he turned his anger onto that sound instead - it was a distraction tool. And he knew that dwelling on the weirdness of his dream during the middle of the night was the worst time to do it. He'd just blow things out of proportion.

He sat up; the blanket pooling at his waist as he swung his feet around to plant them on the ground. He leaned forward and wiped his hands over his face, waking himself up further.

He looked around in the dark. He could hear the faint sound of a ticking clock when the waves quietened down. He was about to turn the TV on when he noticed the soft footfalls on the stairs. They stilted as they reached the bottom and saw that Danny wasn't asleep.

"I'm sorry," a topless Steve said in a hushed tone. "I didn't mean to wake you. I just came down for some water."

"You didn't wake me," Danny told him. "Couldn't sleep."

"Same," Steve said as he went into the kitchen. Danny heard the tap turn on and a few moments later the Navy SEAL reemerged, leaning on the door frame as he drank the whole glass. "What's keeping you up?" he asked. "The waves?"

Danny smiled and shifted on the couch a little, making room in case Steve wanted to sit down. He took the cue and moved closer, putting the now empty glass down on the coffee table as he passed before he sat leaving a gulf between them that seemed weirdly far.

Grabbing the remote, Danny flicked the TV on and immediately turned the volume down to its lowest setting. "The waves don't help. You?"

"Nightmare," Steve answered honestly. "I lost a good friend on my last mission. I keep wondering what I could have done differently to save him."

Danny got a flash of his own weird dream - the feelings and the imagery. He shook it away again. "That's tough, man. Almost losing your dad as well. That's not something I think I'd recover from in a hurry."

"Yeah. A part of me keeps wondering what might have happened if dad had died and so close to losing Freddie." As Steve named his friend, Danny got another flash from his dream. The name sounded familiar. Close. He felt like he could put a name to the face in his dream. "Maybe that's why I feel like… I dunno. Part of me wants to…"

"What?" Danny asked, curious as to where Steve was going with this as he watched the different colors from the TV dance over the other man's features.

"I got a call from the Governor asking to meet with me yesterday. I went along, curious. She said she wanted to start a Major Crimes task force on the island. She knows my father, knew about me from their conversations, and said she thought I'd be ideal to lead the team."

"That sounds like a great opportunity but I got the impression you were heading back to the SEALs soon."

Steve took a second. "That was the plan. But dad's been trying to convince me to take it. To stay. I was thinking about it when I woke up and I had this moment of clarity that the SEALs won't be the same for me without Freddie and maybe it's time to think about a different path. I feel like maybe I should stay on the island, like there’s some kind of pull to keep me here," he turned his gaze to Danny as if willing answers to spring forth between them.

Danny was wondering the same thing. He felt strange around Steve and he couldn't quite work out what it was. He wanted the guy to stay around, felt like it was wrong for him to go. It was probably just him projecting his own longing for his family back in New Jersey that was amplified by the darkness of the night.

"Listen, if I had the opportunity to take Grace and go home to Jersey I would do it in a heartbeat. For you, it's like you've been given that chance. You can be with your family, you have a great job offer. Maybe it's a no brainer."

Steve seemed to agree. "I'll transfer into the Reserves and take the job."

"Decision made."

"Thanks," Steve said, smiling at him.

"You're welcome."

*

Danny woke with a crick in his neck from sleeping sitting up. He'd drifted off again sometime later to the sound of someone trying to sell him a deluxe coffee maker. The blanket had been repositioned on him and he guessed Steve must have done that, but he had no idea if the SEAL had stayed on the couch or gone to his own bed again.

He reached a hand to the side and noticed that the leather next to him still had a warmth to it. So Steve must have stayed. But he'd disappeared now.

Danny got up and wandered into the kitchen. He turned on John's old coffee maker - taking a moment to wonder if he should buy the old man a new one like the one on TV - when he noticed Steve outside wearing board shorts and dripping wet from another swim.

He wandered outside, hands in his pockets. "Isn't it a little early for this kind of thing?"

"I prefer to go out at this time of day," he grabbed a towel, and Danny felt a twinge of disappointment that Steve was covering up his body and he had to avert his eyes from the sight to instead look out to the ocean as Steve continued. "I called the Governor's office and accepted the job. I then called your precinct and left a message for Tanaka to tell him you'd be transferring out. I'll have the paperwork sorted as soon as the Governor's clerks start their shifts."

"I'm sorry… transferring?" Danny's attention was brought back to Steve. "Why am I transferring and to where?"

"To the task force. I need a partner."

"Which is all very well, but you didn't think to mention it to me? Maybe ask before putting it through?"

Steve shrugged as he put the towel down and grabbed for a t-shirt. "Reassignment is a decision made by Commanders based on the personnel they need. I'm commanding the task force, I recognize the areas of need and choose my team."

"Okay, hold on a second, Rambo. That's maybe how things work in the military but in the real world, it's considered polite to ask before changing someone's job," he waved his hands around.

Steve smiled at him. "It's already done. And I figured you were unlikely to turn down the pay rise."

"Whether I would take the job is not the point. It's common courtesy!"

Steve continued to smile at him in what felt like an indulgent way. He breezed past the smaller man. "Anyone ever tell you how cute you look when you're flustered?"

Danny gaped at Steve's back, completely at a loss as to what to say, until he sputtered out, “No?!”

“Well, they should have,” Steve threw back over his shoulder with a wink.

*

John had hugged both of them. A hell of a lot of decisions had been made in the last eight hours and changed a lot of things, yet the elder McGarrett didn't seem overly surprised at the speed.

They had breakfast with Danny making pancakes for everyone in thanks for John and Steve's hospitality. When Steve told Grace he was going to be working with her father, she seemed excited. They left when Danny realized he needed to get Grace back to Rachel's. His little girl was happy and it made Danny happy to see it. The time at the house, meeting John and Steve, and their invite to let her come by anytime she wanted had perked her up more than he'd seen in a while and his heart soared.

She chatted away about everything all the way home with Danny only needing to throw in the occasional positive comments. He was reluctant to say his goodbye to her but promised to call her later that evening.

He made his way back to his apartment, throwing his keys on the small coffee table. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he read the text from Steve about how he needed to sign documents that were at the precinct and that Steve himself had to go to Pearl and finish paperwork there for his transfer to the Reserves. Apparently the switch would take a few days for Steve to complete and he was telling Danny to take the time off work until Steve returned.

Danny rubbed absently over his chest as he felt a strange pang. Maybe heartburn. He'd need to get some pepto.


	3. Chapter 3

After the next day, Danny was sure he was coming down with something. He felt run down, sweaty and the heartburn was still hanging in there. He still wasn’t sleeping well at night and that hadn't helped with the dreams making him feel disoriented each time he woke, like he was in the wrong place. He figured that since he had these few days off he'd stay holed up so as not to infect other people and was staying in his sweatpants and attempting to watch TV and not think about how rotten he felt.

He’d tried to order take out the night before, feeling like maybe he should eat something, but he’d only managed a small amount before feeling queasy. Luckily, he’d kept it down, but it might have been a mistake to try. But as a new day arrived he was sitting on his futon and staring at the toast on his coffee table and still not feeling like he was up for eating anything. This bug was lasting longer than he’d thought it would. Which meant another duvet day seemed to be in order.

When there was a knock on his door, he was tempted to ignore it and go back to not eating his late breakfast (or was it lunch by now?) but it seemed insistent when it knocked a second time.

"John, what are you doing here?" he asked.

The older man just frowned at him. "Idiots, the both of you. Get dressed we need to go."

"Go where?"

"Steve was getting a physical this morning when they noticed what was going on with him. He was hiding it well. We need to get you up there."

Danny shuffled to the closet to find some jeans and a t-shirt to wear but he just didn't feel like putting on proper clothing. Hearing John speak made him screw his face up. If Steve had brought back some foreign disease and given it to him…

Grace! What if she- no, she was fine. Danny had spoken to her last night and to Rachel and neither had remotely mentioned Grace even having a minor sniffle. It had been Danny who spent the majority of time with Steve and had more of a shot at getting sick. Though John seemed okay… trust Danny to be the susceptible one to whatever virus Steve had.

John ushered Danny out of the house, helping him lock up and then get into the man's truck. He kept glancing at Danny on the side, especially at the way he kept rubbing at his chest.  
"I should have noticed something sooner. I had an inkling, call it a parent's intuition," the older man said. "But in my defense, I was on the outside looking in and it's not like we see these things too often. Even with new technology, it's still rare."

Danny swallowed a lump in his throat. Dear God… a rare illness. This better have an antidote.

Arriving at Pearl it seemed they were expected and they were shown in by two men in camouflage uniforms and then by a woman who held a higher rank and escorted them to what looked like a conference room but in true military style, it was functional and barren of any flair or color.

Danny took the opportunity to sit, though he did seem to feel better than he had for the last few hours.

"He's in here," he heard a voice behind him say and then Steve entered the room, sighing in relief and leaning back against the wall.

"I'll leave you both to have a talk," John said, patting his son's shoulder as he passed by, closing the door behind him.

"What's going on?" Danny asked as he sat back and watched the SEAL. "I thought I was being brought to a hospital or something, not this," he gestured around.

"They don't have much else that's private. But this is so we can talk before they let us go home."

"Talk about what? Oh God, is whatever's happening to me going to kill me or something? Some rare foreign flu that there's no cure for?"

"What? No! You didn't-" he stopped himself then came closer, pulling out a chair to sit next to Danny. "I'm sorry I didn't realize what was happening to us. I thought I was trying to replace Freddie or something stupid like that. I lost my best friend, I was so used to having someone like him at my back all the time. Losing him created a void inside me. It was like… well, like finding a rebound person, you know? And you saved my dad, I figured you were just the person my subconscious had chosen to latch onto. I didn't think what I was feeling was anything more than that. Then I started to feel sick and they wanted to give me a physical and that's when they saw my hormone levels and they told me."

"I still don't understand what you're talking about. Told you what?"

"That I'd found my soulmate and was going through bond sickness. That's why dad came to get you - we have to be together during the bond in order for it to take."

"You-" Danny stopped, confused brain catching up as to why he was involved in any of this. "Now wait a minute… you can't be serious about this. You and me?!"

"I didn't believe it at first but it's difficult to refute. I saw my test results. It explains everything, like the weird electricity I felt when we met. It explains the dreams about people and places I didn’t recognize that must have come from you. And I know I was feeling like crap until I walked into this room. You feel better, too."

Danny had been concentrating on their conversation and hadn't realized just how much his symptoms had eased. All except the stone occupying the bottom of his stomach that was churning with anxiety and disbelief over what the hell was going. "But soul mates? I've never believed in it."

"Everyone has one," Steve pointed out. Which was considered true but since people so rarely connected it wasn't like it was worth putting stock in.

"Come on, that's just the bullshit the mate finding companies spin to get your money," Danny answered. "No, it's not a soul mate thing." He stood, pushing his chair back and heading to the door, feeling claustrophobic and needing to get out.

Steve stood as well and grabbed for Danny's forearm before he could reach the door. "Hold on. You've got to keep an open mind about this. Just-" Steve gave up on trying to say something convincing and instead he ushered Danny to the wall, bracketed him in, and leaned close. He held back for just a split second before his lips descended on Danny's.

It was hard and demanding, almost desperate but as Danny let go of the surprise at Steve's move, everything morphed. Somehow the warmth in his chest he recognized from when he'd met Steve filled him again. It started in his heart and fanned out through his body and he relaxed into it on instinct and it didn't hurt at all. It felt like it belonged there. He concentrated on the kiss, the way Steve's lips felt pressed to his own. It was perfect. It felt right.

Danny felt the grip of Steve's hands as they moved over his arms and neck. Their tongues touched as mouths opened and everything seemed to inhabit a new level. The kiss was hot and heavy and desire flooded Danny's brain, short-circuiting the whole thing, rewriting what he believed in and what he didn't despite his lingering protestations and opening up his mind for a bond.

Steve softened the touch, allowing Danny to breathe but the kisses continued with short pecks as their noses bumped, angles shifting. Steve hummed as he kissed the side of Danny's mouth then pressed his forehead to Danny's temple, a hand sliding across Danny's throat in a light caress.

"That was something," Steve said in a low voice, unwilling to break the mood.

For the first time, Danny noticed his arms were around Steve's waist and he dropped the dead weights to his side. "I need to go," he said abruptly and pushed out of the way, yanking the door open and striding down the corridor.

Faces turned to him, curiosity and concern evident.

He didn't get far. The bonding hormones raging in his brain after Steve's perfect kiss made him hurt again; punishment for leaving Steve's side. His heart hurt like it had been stabbed and he pulled up, bending over at the waist as he tried to control it.

"Danny, come on, this is ridiculous, where are you trying to go, son?" John stopped him, hands pulling him upright again.

"What's happening?" Danny wheezed out.

John got Danny's arm around his shoulder and turned them to walk back. "Well, I've never seen it myself but it seems like textbook bond sickness to me."

Danny fought John's hold, using all his effort to quash the pain lancing through his heart and he turned away again. It was the last thing he remembered before everything blacked out.

*

He woke with the sound of steady beeping beside him. He looked down at himself to find he'd been put on a hospital bed in a small ward. From this angle, he could see there were about 5 or so other beds, all of which were empty. But he could feel warmth at his other side which moved steadily. Like breathing.

He shifted, turning his still fuzzy head to see Steve lying beside him, propped up on a bunch of pillows, and holding his hand. John sat at Steve's side and Danny felt like he'd interrupted their conversation by waking.

"Right now if you stray too far apart, you faint," Jack explained to him. "The more complete your bond gets, the shorter the distance it takes for you to feel the effects. Like I said.   
Textbook. Until the bond is complete, you’re stuck with each other. Unless you want to continue to make yourselves sick."

"Urgh," Danny grumbled as he pulled himself higher on the bed, trying not to press too much against Steve - he was already partially on top of the other man and didn't want to squash him further. Why the hell the SEAL wasn't in a bed of his own was beyond him.

After Danny pulled his hand from Steve's, the other man just lifted his whole arm and wrapped it over Danny's shoulders.

"This is so stupid," Danny moaned.

"You must be one of the only people in the world not to feel some kind of excitement at finding their soulmate," Steve laughed.

"Naturally, as well. None of those companies helped you. That's a pretty good story," John told them. "You wouldn't know this, Danny, but Hawaiians are much more spiritual when it comes to finding soul mates. They don't put stock in getting helping hands and embracing whatever the soul match companies can find for them. They think it should be a natural process and those who find their soul mates do so for a reason."

"What kind of reason?" Danny asked.

"That the old Gods have smiled on them," Jack said, hands wide. "That it's happened at the right time for them. There are a lot of myths on these islands about how two souls come together. And I gotta say, the two of you rank right up there after the situations you were in when it happened."

Danny remembered the story of his however-many-greats grandparents and how they'd met. It was true that people always had stories of how two souls came together. And plenty of those were legends or in works of fiction. But he and Steve had met because Danny had been invited to dinner. That wasn't out of the ordinary at all.

Of course, if you took into account Danny moving from Jersey and being there to stop Hesse killing John... Then if you considered Steve losing his friend and then almost losing his father because he had the other Hesse brother in custody… maybe it did sound like some kind of epic, great first meeting but-

John's phone buzzed and he grabbed for it. "Ah, Joe's here. He said he'd come help fast track your paperwork out of the Navy."

"I thought you were going into the Reserves?" Danny said, twisting his head to look at Steve.

"I can't. If I'm bonded I can't be deployed anywhere, they don't allow it because of how it can affect judgment. And it compromises me if our enemies find out I have a bond mate. But it's okay. My discharge is honorable and I already have a great job lined up," he squeezed the back of Danny's neck. "Commander White has everything taken care of on the Navy's side of things. Dad already spoke to the Governor and she's happy to have me leading the task force since you'll be with me."

"Great," Danny mumbled as he squeezed at his eyes. "Glad things are working out for you."

Steve shifted around to look at Danny better, getting onto his side and propping his head on a hand. "I don't get it. Are you really not happy about this? About finding your soul mate?"

"It's very strange to have something you didn't believe in suddenly bite you on the ass and be real. This changes things. I've never liked change."

"I thought you just resented this place because your ex came out here and you had to follow in order to see Grace. But it's deeper than you just being stubborn about how her decisions affected you," Steve's fingers casually played and tweaked over Danny's shirt buttons.

Danny took a beat before opening up. "Rachel was supposed to be it. I married her with the commitment that we'd be husband and wife 'til death do us part. With the divorce… I dunno, after that I didn't expect anyone else. I thought I'd put all my energy into Grace. Truth be told, a part of me figured that even with Rachel getting remarried, maybe someday we'd get another chance together. If we could stop arguing for five seconds maybe we'd be able to give Grace her parents back. And now you're lying there saying it's supposed to be you and me? Soulmates?"

"It's not what you wanted."

"It's not what I _expected_ ," Danny phrased it differently, aware of the hurt in Steve's eyes. "You're a great guy. A good guy. At least I'm pretty sure, but we've known each other all of a day or so. I have to prioritize Grace."

"She likes me fine."

"Having an eight-year-old like you as some kind of surrogate Uncle is different than having them like you as a father figure. As someone permanently in their lives to rely on to be there and to keep her on the straight and narrow."

"Okay, I get it."

"Do you?"

"I do," Steve leaned into Danny, pressing his nose into his hair and then kissing against his temple. "You need time to deal with the news and don't want to rush into a bond. Having a level head about this is a good thing, I don't have a problem with that. Luckily we live in an age of technology that can help us."

"You mean the polarized bracelets."

"They can block the effects of the bond indefinitely without us having to go through the pain of breaking it."

"Those things are expensive and I have no idea where we'd get some."

"I do. I'll make a call. We could have them here in a matter of hours."

*

Danny stood in the bathroom and twisted the bracelet around his wrist. It was a surprisingly heavy weight. Or maybe that was in his mind. The weight of guilt and regret and expectation.  
He was back to normal again and that felt wrong. Even if he was steadfast in his desire to not rush into a bond, to not allow nature to control his life when he had a lot more to worry about than who he slept with, he still felt like shutting off the emerging bond was a mistake.

But he had to do it.

He took a deep breath as he looked at himself in the mirror. As much as high school biology lessons taught you what you were supposed to feel when you met your soulmate, it was difficult to describe in real terms. They had been right that it would create this innate feeling of no longer being alone and putting the bracelet on had felt like a sucker punch to the gut as it scaled back the fledgling bond. No wonder it was said that the bracelets could only be worn during the early stages and not once the bond had solidified. Well, you could, but it would result in a coma from the mind shock.

A part of him wished it had been some kind of exotic illness he'd contracted rather than bond sickness. Danny had always been skeptical about soulmates, never expected to find one and honestly wasn't sure he even cared to have one. And McGarrett? Danny had preferred women in the past, though he did like them to be on the taller side, and there was-... still it had been something to process _Steve_ as his soulmate. He was not as expected. 

Danny touched his lips. The man was a good kisser. Or maybe he thought that because they were soulmates.

You see? _That's_ what he hated about this whole thing - that he didn't know what was his own decision and what was down to some cosmic plan controlling him. 

As he came out of the bathroom, he caught the tail end of a conversation between Steve and his father and he knew it was about him and about what was going on. He just heard what sounded like Steve defending him and the idea that they should get to know each other first. John seemed old fashioned and clearly believed that there was little point in denying the obvious. He looked at Danny with a mixture of resigned sadness and concern.

"We getting out of here?" Danny asked.

"You boys hungry?" John put in. "We could all grab a bite together. Maybe give you a chance to start this getting to know each other process you're so set on."

"I'd really rather just go home. Take some time. Wrap my head around all of this."

The doctor gave them some advice before leaving, reminding them not to take the bracelets off (even while in the shower) until they were in each others' presence and ready for the rush that would accompany the bond. It would continue to grow in the background, they just wouldn't be aware of it due to the dampening nature of the cuffs they wore. If they waited more than a year, the flood of connection they'd get on removal would be overwhelming and land them back in the hospital for a few days while their brains adjusted.

John drove and Danny was relegated to the back seat of the car and the drive felt a little awkward and quiet. When they pulled up at Danny's apartment complex, John turned his nose up at it. "Danny, wouldn't it be best if you spent more time at the house with Steve?"

"Listen, hanging out there together is a great idea, but cohabiting... that's gotta be for the future."

John twisted around to be able to look between both men. "I'll be honest, I was thinking about selling up until all this happened. It's a big house for just me. Mary's on the mainland and Steve's not been home in so long. "

"Dad-" Steve tried to interrupt but John continued-

"I'm just saying it's a great house for a family. There's Grace to think about and maybe you would try and expand the family somehow in the future. I could move into a smaller place that's more manageable..."

"Dad, you're not that old. And Danny and I are still a long way off deciding what to do about living arrangements," he looked out the window of the truck and up to Danny's current accommodations. "Although, Danny? I can't believe you let Grace stay here with you. Maybe dad's right about you spending more time with us."

"There's been enough change in my life for one day," Danny said back, a scowl on his face. He knew his apartment was a dump but it was all he could afford right now and it was _his_ dump. He was the only one allowed to shit on it, not these people who he barely knew. "I'm fine. Grace is fine. I'll see you at work on Monday."

"Hey," Steve stopped him before he was fully out of the car. He took one last look through the windscreen at the complex but then decided not to say what he was going to and settled on something else. "See you Monday."


	4. Chapter 4

Their first case was a personal one for Steve - finding out how Victor Hesse got on the Island. Along the way, they recruited two new members of the team in something of an organic fashion, first meeting Chin Ho Kelly when they needed help to find informants, and then his cousin Kono when they needed a UC that no one knew. 

The case had been relatively straightforward as they’d put the pieces together and followed the trail to Doran and then to Sang Min. But as Danny found out, the SEAL in Steve was reckless and idiotic and a control freak. And he got Danny shot. 

By the time they wrapped, Danny knew he had some domesticating to do because Steve really needed to learn how things worked outside of the military. Actual police work was very different from being a SEAL and he made sure to leave a stack of manuals front and center on Steve’s desk, hoping he’d take the hint.

Over the coming months, it was important for the team to settle and for all four to get used to how the others worked, what their unique strengths were, how their personalities matched. Steve had chosen good people in Chin and Kono and the cousins had no problem working with a bonded pair. Well, half-bonded at this stage, anyway. And although they leaned into their Hawaiian roots - encouraging the bonding process, considering it a blessing they shouldn’t be turning down - they allowed the men to go at their own pace. Though sly comments about how certain things might be easier or faster if the pair were fully bonded, never went unnoticed.

Steve and Danny spent evenings together when they could. They’d watch movies at the office and Steve had taken Danny to different places on the Island to help acclimatize him and maybe try to get him to like the place more. They’d spend weekends with Grace, including using a gift Steve purchased for them at the Kahala Hotel, which Danny knew was because Steve hated Danny’s apartment but also knew too many prods to come to the house wouldn’t work.

Danny couldn’t deny that as much as he might have heated conversations with Steve - whether it was about disagreements on procedure at work or the fact that pineapple on pizza was the devil's work - they had a great rhythm and both enjoyed the friction they generated. He liked Steve. There were so many qualities the ex-SEAL had that were commendable. And, God help him, the things he found annoying he also somehow found... endearing? The man was still certifiable, though.

And he couldn’t deny that he found Steve attractive. Allowing himself to think of Steve in that way was a necessity. If they were soul mates, then bond completion - if they went that route - would involve sex. He had to consider what that would be like and when he did, he liked what he thought about. It wasn’t so alien for him to think of men in that way and he had always been open to possibilities, but with being married to Rachel and having dated almost all women previous to that, it had been a long time since the ‘opportunity’ had risen. Now it was a real possibility and he had time to let it sink in.

About 2 months into their partnership, Steve’s girlfriend had shown up. That was awkward. Steve didn’t call her his girlfriend but it was clear there had been something between them and Danny had decided to step aside and let Steve deal with things how he wanted, but that also meant Danny felt like he was in limbo, not really knowing what had been decided until he asked Steve directly who had acted like it had been a moot point all along - he was committed to the soul bond and anything he had with Catherine had always just been based on friendship. And they barely saw each other anyway.

4 months into their partnership had been more of a turning point when Meka had been killed and the trust that Steve and Danny had been building came into focus; the belief they had in each other after such a short time. That gut feeling that they had about the other. They finally said something out loud about it and it seemed to propel them forward. After Meka’s wake was the first time the two men had kissed since before the bracelets went on.

By the time they were over 7 months into their partnership, they’d been on some fledgling ‘dates’ though everything had still been slow to build. Danny had been the one who wanted time to let something grow between them, but Steve had been quick to suggest using the bracelets and Danny assumed he’d also felt the same way but sometimes he sensed what he thought was an impatience on Steve’s side. Then other times, he carried himself with what looked like indifference.

And Danny had moments of self-doubt. He hadn’t just wanted to wait because he wanted to get to know Steve better and let Grace get used to having him in their lives. He wanted Steve to have a get out of jail free option in case _he didn’t like Danny_.

Danny knew he had neuroses, anxieties, hang-ups. He knew his annoyance at not understanding Hawaii or about not spending enough time with Grace or being too many time zones removed from his family meant people had to put up with negativity from him. And he knew that it must make being around him difficult at times. Would Steve be thinking he dodged a bullet by putting the cuff on?

He found himself touching the bracelet more and more. He’d twist it around his wrist in the same manner that he used to twist his wedding ring. He’d dig his finger underneath it and scratch idly or think about just snapping it off since there were plenty of times it was irritating to always have it on. He never saw Steve do any of that. The SEAL seemed to more easily ignore it, to compensate and learn to live with it if it were affecting him in any way. It was no different than the watch he wore on his other wrist, though that device he glanced at a lot more often.

Now Danny knew they were both skirting around having ‘the conversation’, whether because they were busy at work or just never felt the time was right. The more the bracelet irritated him, the more he wondered if that was because the bond had continued to grow in the background and was telling him it was time. After 7 months it would be strong, especially given the amount of time they spent together. They were at the stage where any decision on their removal would need to be planned to avoid bond shock. They would need to be responsible and plan for it and go somewhere to... consummate.

They’d taken a day off and gone hiking up the Ko’olau Ridge and things had gone to hell in a way that seemed to happen all too often. They’d been enjoying themselves and Danny felt like maybe this was the kind of day where one of them would bring up the possibility of removing the bracelets but then they’d found a body and were thrust into having to solve a new case.

And Steve broke his arm. He was lucky not to do worse. He was lucky not to shatter the bracelet and then where would they be? Danny had been incredibly relieved when Steve confirmed it was still on his wrist, and he knew that relief was etched plainly on his face.

But any thoughts of actual conversation were pushed aside yet again because they had to get Steve airlifted to the hospital. As he watched Steve ascend into the helicopter, wind whipping around him, he felt something inside him - even if just for a moment - fully embrace the bond and he mimed his feelings up to Steve. But his partner barely responded and he didn’t have any time to consider what that meant as they had a case.

After it wrapped, everyone had gone to the Hilton for dinner and drinks and to watch the weekly fireworks. They’d been joined by their extended ohana, with Kamekona and John tagging along with the team and John giving Danny a pointed look when it seemed as if Danny was acting jealous of their server.

Of course, one of the good things about an injured Steve McGarrett was that he wasn’t able to drive with a busted arm. Sure, he’d taken the sling off and he’d tried to insist driving with the cast was perfectly acceptable, but Danny had managed to veto him. And, well, he’d made it to the driver’s side of the car first and slid into the seat before Steve could get there.

He then sat staring at the steering wheel in disbelief and began laughing. “What the hell am I doing?!”

“That’s a very good question,” John asked with a raised eyebrow.

“None of us can drive,” Danny said, raising a finger to point between all three of them. “There’s no way any of us are in a fit state. We need to get cabs.” He got out of the car, shut the door and used his key to beep it shut as he pulled his phone out.

“It’s a Friday night, they’ll be really busy. Just order one cab and come stay with us,” John told Danny.

“We insist,” Steve said then smiled and stage-whispered to him. “It’ll be cheaper, too.”

“Ah, of course,” Danny said with the roll of his eyes at Steve’s trademark of keeping his wallet shut unless the situation was desperate. Neither man had made mention of how much they hated Danny’s apartment - they’d stopped doing that a few weeks ago when Danny had got really mad about their opinions but it was still clear when they enticed Danny to stay over that it was a big part of their reasoning.

In the taxi, John sat in front with the driver while Steve and Danny shared the backseat. Danny wasn’t sure how it happened, but they were holding hands for most of it until Steve let go to throw his arm around Danny’s shoulders to pull him in closer and place a drunken kiss on Danny’s temple. 

When they got back to the house, John went in first while Danny paid the driver and Steve stuck close to him. They watched the car leave and turned to the house, where the porch light was on and everything else around them was almost pitch dark; the trees and walls that surrounded the property blocking the streetlights from shining too brightly onto the driveway. 

Steve sidled closer to Danny and held around his waist with his good arm, swaying them slightly, though that could be the result of the drinking they’d been doing that evening. “I’m glad you’re here,” Steve mumbled as he pressed his forehead to Danny’s.

“I know how much you hate my apartment,” Danny rolled his eyes and joked. 

“No, I mean _here_ here. In my life. And I know you don’t want to do the soulmate thing-”

“I never said that. I just want to make sure it’s my- our- decision and not the universe demanding it of us. That’s all.”

“Well, I know what my decision is. And I’m ready whenever you are.”

“Good to know,” Danny smiled, feeling a flutter of what he could only describe as relief. “I thought you might have second thoughts.”

“Pfft,” Steve waved off, then continued on another conversation path. “We drank the same amount, how come I seem more drunk than you? That doesn’t seem like it should be right…”

“I think you did something stupid and took your pain meds earlier and they mixed with the alcohol. Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Danny kept an arm around Steve as they went inside the house.

“You coming with me?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea tonight,” Danny answered and Steve pouted.

John helped Danny get Steve up the stairs and into his bed and after they pulled the covers over the SEAL, he mumbled ‘the universe isn’t so stupid’ before falling asleep. 

Danny was going to sleep on the couch, but John insisted he take Mary’s old room. As John brought him a towel to use in the shower the next morning, he noticed how Danny was playing with his cuff, the weight and the feel of it annoying him as he dug his fingers behind the metal to rub at his skin. 

“You know, I do understand why you decided to wait,” John started. “But I’m convinced you’re good for each other and that you should embrace the bond. I think you know that too. I’m just curious why you’re still waiting. Grace is happy, the taskforce is doing well, what’s holding you back?”

Danny sat on the bed. “To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just… scared. I’ve been burned before.”

John slowly stepped closer and sat beside him. “Rachel wasn’t your soulmate.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t still get hurt. And I’m not saying Steve would do something on purpose but… he’s still a SEAL even if he left the Navy. We’re both still working dangerous jobs. Something could happen.”

“You can’t live your life always worrying about the bad things that can happen. You keep doing that, you won’t be able to function. You might as well wrap yourself up in cotton wool and never leave the house.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Danny said, trying to lighten the mood a little. “It’s the way I am. It’s like I can’t just enjoy happiness when I have it. I remember standing there at the altar on my wedding day, looking at Rachel, and all I could imagine was her handing me divorce papers. And when I was a kid and my parents were late coming home, I used to imagine they’d died in a car wreck and I’d beg God to not take my mom from me. Anything good in my life and I imagine it ending and this? This has the potential to be _so good_. Which makes me think there’s potential for it to go _so bad_.”

John squeezed Danny’s shoulder. “You keep saying you don’t want the universe to control your actions, but you’re giving it a lot of credit for the bad things in your life. How about giving it some for the good things too, huh? And see what it’s offering you as a gift and why would it want to take that back? You want my advice? Embrace the good.”

“I can try that,” Danny replied and John smiled at him. 

“It’s what I’m doing, too. The universe brought Steve home, and it had you save my life. Now it wants the two of you together. I couldn’t be happier.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Get some sleep. Maybe in the morning we can sort some things out.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Danny, let’s go! We’ve got a case!” Steve banged on the bedroom door to wake Danny up, who rolled over and groaned as he looked at the clock. 

“It’s seven in the morning, what the hell?!”

“You want to go tell the criminals on this island to keep more sociable hours, be my guest!” Steve answered before Danny heard the footsteps retreat. 

He wasn’t prepared for a case to happen so early on a Saturday morning. He needed clothes except all he had were the ones he’d been wearing the day before, and his car was back at the Hilton. 

There was no time to discuss anything, so Danny had to make do with showering at the McGarrett house and borrowing Steve’s toiletries to freshen up until he could get his go-bag out of the trunk of the car. John gave both men a ride to the Hilton to pick up the Camaro and from there they went straight to headquarters though Danny first went to the bathroom to change his clothes before joining the others, finding them already mid-discussion on what was happening. 

Chin turned to him with a smirk. “Didn’t go home last night, huh?”

“I wasn’t going to drive home drunk,” he reminded his colleague who wisely decided to stop teasing.

“Five-0 landed this case because HPD is convinced it’s related to Sang Min, whose operation we dismantled while trying to figure out how Victor Hesse got on the island,” Chin continued, looping Danny in. “They think it’s up to us to gather up all the loose ends. I don’t blame them, they’ve got a huge workload right now.”

Danny looked up at the screen that had about half a dozen images of young Chinese women, all dead. 

“HPD is pretty sure they're all illegals,” Kono took over. “All found in a badly constructed mass grave and we think something must have happened to them on the way over from China. Max puts their TOD around last week but they’ve only been in the ground a couple of days.”

“We wouldn’t have even found the graves if it wasn’t for you both being up on the Ko’olau mountain range finding that other body. HPD discovered it after the evac chopper spotted something strange when coming up to get you,” Chin continued.

Danny looked at Steve. “Only you could uncover two crimes as a result of a morning hike.”

“It’s not like I do it on purpose!” Steve replied. “So what made HPD think this is related to Sang Min’s old operation? There must be other players on the island for trafficking.”

“Hair samples found on one of the bodies matched a record in HPD’s database,” Chin swiped his hand over the computer table and brought up a mugshot on the screen. “Lee Kamaka. There’s nothing big in his arrest record, some possession charges. According to the HPD files, he was flagged as a known associate of Sang Min’s about three years ago, seems to be pretty low level.”

“If we can get him in here, we can flip him. Maybe find out who is running the operation now in Sang Min’s absence. Someone must have taken over to fill the void,” Danny suggested.

“That’s assuming that since Sang Min’s escape, he hasn’t gone back to his old ways,” Steve said. “Maybe this could lead to us catching him again. Chin and I will go pick up Kamaka. Danny, Kono, check with Kamekona. He led us to Sang Min originally, maybe he knows more about the new operation, too.”

“You want us to pick up lunch while we’re there?” Danny asked jokingly, though Steve told him to bring him back some spicy shrimp. 

*

Five-0 had found the place they were sure the new trafficking crew were working from: a suspected chop shop west of Chinatown where they were moving out of the car business and into humans instead. Interrogation of Kamaka had lined up with what little information Kamekona had and alongside some GPS wizardry from Chin, they were ready to infiltrate. 

SWAT back-up in place, tac gear on, weapons ready, Steve silently motioned instructions to each of them. They’d fanned out upon entry, weapons ready as Steve announced them into the space and the occupants began to panic, some fleeing, some reaching for weapons of their own and a firefight began. In his ear, Danny heard updates from the team and the SWAT guys as they chased after suspects or cleared rooms. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny spotted a suspect appear from behind a car where he’d been laying low and taking off towards a back room. He yelled that he was following without waiting on anyone else to go with him in case he lost the guy. He slowed as he approached the door and as he went through it, he felt the sudden pain erupt at the back of his head as he was hit with something heavy and hard. 

He stumbled forward, gun falling from his grip and skidding away. His vision whited out for a moment and made him dizzy until he regained his balance only to then be kicked in the back. He groaned in pain then turned to find the man in front of him, coming at him. He blocked the punch and caught him with a mean right hook only for his attacker to follow up with a hit square in the jaw and a sucker-punch straight in the gut. He doubled over and got knee-ed in the face, his nose bloody and painful before another punch took him out entirely and he fell back onto the ground, his whole body just hitting it at force and his wrist striking something sharp. He fumbled to find what it was and gripped onto the metal pipe and when the guy came at him again, he lashed out, hitting him square in the knee. 

He struggled to his feet and used the pipe again, taking a wild swing with as much brute strength as he could manage to clock the guy over his head and he fell to the ground unconscious. Danny allowed himself a moment to sag in relief having won the fight.

He felt woozy, aching all over but there was something else in his head that just seemed to take him in a rush of pain like a sudden onset migraine and it made him clutch at his head in agony. 

He couldn’t stay on his feet and fell to his knees then down onto all fours as he tried to deal with the pain inside him but then he noticed the burning sensation in his heart and as he lifted a hand to rub at it, he collapsed onto the ground, rolling onto his back and just feeling like he wasn’t even there anymore, like he was halfway to unconsciousness.

There were frantic sounds in his ear that he knew were voices but he couldn’t seem to hear them properly, drowned out by the banging and ringing in his head until there were hands on him. 

His instinct was to try to fend them off but he couldn’t move his body properly and at best could just ineffectually flail them around. Then the sensation of the hands touching him - the only thing beyond the pain he’d been able to focus on, were joined by the feel of a press against his lips.

The pain in his head seemed to recede back and he looked up to see Steve, pale and worried, blood smeared over his hands and forearms and trying to ask Danny if he was okay. 

“What the hell?” Danny asked, realizing he was lying in Steve’s arms as he knelt on the floor holding Danny.

Steve lifted Danny’s arm, the one with the bracelet only to see it smashed to pieces and hanging half-off. “How are you feeling?”

“I guess that explains the explosions in my head.”

“I felt it, too. Actually I don’t think it was as bad as the whammy you took since I’ve still got mine on,” he gestured to where his bracelet was wrapped around his wrist. 

“My head felt like it had cracked open and my brain was spilling out while a building fell on my body and set me on fire,” Danny moaned as he clutched at Steve’s forearm and pulled himself into a sitting position where he could support his own weight. He rubbed at his head, still feeling woozy and knowing there was an itch inside him.

Steve kept his hand in Danny’s but reached the other to his face and Danny winced as he touched his sensitive nose. “I don’t think it’s broken but there’s a lot of blood,” Steve said and Danny looked down at where the red was staining his light color shirt in stark contrast. “You had me worried there for a second.”

“I’m good. And I got the guy back. Danny Williams, in the garage, with the lead pipe,” he said then tried to laugh but it hurt to do so, not just on his face but his chest, too. He may have bruised his ribs with some of those kicks. 

“Can you stand up?”

“I think so,” Danny answered and Steve kept hold of him as they got into a standing position just as Kono and Chin arrived, Kono going straight to the unconscious man on the floor to restrain him in case he woke. 

“Ambulance is on the way,” Chin said as Danny noted that Steve must have asked for one pretty quickly upon discovering Danny on the floor. “We’re rounding up everyone that’s left. SWAT thinks one person got away but the rest are either dead or in custody.”

“Good work,” Steve said and then let go of Danny now that he had regained his balance, but the moment he did, Danny’s head was overcome with pain again, rushing back to him in a wave of agony and it made him buckle and cry out. 

He would have collapsed if not for Steve’s arms enfolding him again, one arm around his back and the other gripping his wrist and pulling Danny in close. “Woah, hey,” Steve steadied them. 

“What the hell was that?!” Danny asked.

Chin raised an eyebrow as he watched them. “I’m no expert, but I’d say you’ve got bond shock.”

“But we’re below the one year threshold,” Danny replied. 

“Yeah but it’s not an exact science,” Kono put in. “Besides, pretty sure the one year the docs talk about is the point where you’d lapse into a coma. Right now it looks like so long as you stay in contact with one another, you’re okay.”

Danny looked down at the points of connection between him and Steve. “Okay, just for my own piece of mind let’s slowly just… try…” he let go gingerly and had to grasp for Steve again when he felt the build of pain and nausea forming. “So what do we do?”

Kono snorted. “You get a room.”

“I have an idea,” Steve said and while keeping one hand on Danny, he fumbled for a zip tie from the side pocket of his vest. He held Danny’s hand and lifted them. Keeping the soft sides of their wrists touching, he wrapped the zip tie around them and tightened it. “There, now we can’t accidentally separate.”

“Gotta say, I always figured you’d be the type,” Danny smirked. “Though I thought it would mean being cuffed to the bed, not directly to you.”

Steve blushed a little, which was a unique thing to see and gave Danny a weird sense of pride at being able to get Steve off-guard. The SEAL cleared his throat and recovered. “I was in the Navy. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

*

The paramedics had been confused to find Danny attached to Steve in such a way. They’d given a cursory explanation as to why they were zip-tied together, and then they’d been put into the ambulance at the paramedic’s insistence that Danny get his ribs x-rayed at the hospital. He’d also need a stitch or two on the bridge of his nose but he’d been lucky not to damage it further.

Steve was relatively unscathed. The blood in smears over him wasn’t his own except for a scratch on his arm just below his tattoo, beyond that they were just sweaty and grimy. Steve had placed a call while they were en route to the doctor who had treated them initially at the base and he agreed to meet them at Queen’s to assess their current situation.

Once Danny was as patched up as he could be, they sat on the bed in a private room with the doctor holding their charts. “Because you still have your bracelet on, it’s dulling the effects of the shock on your side," he told Steve, "but it won’t hold for long and there’s nothing else we can do to delay the bonding process.”

“That’s pretty much what we expected but what do we do now?”

The doctor shut his notes over and clasped the folder to his chest as he looked at them. “The sooner the better at this stage. If I were you, I’d make a night of it. Even book into a hotel for privacy, order room service, and get down to it.”

“And once it’s done we’ll be able to let go of each other?” Danny asked. 

“If you want to? Sure." The doctor smiled, trying to make light. "I’ve seen case studies of those who have worn bracelets for longer having no complications after the bond takes hold.”

The doctor helped remove Steve’s bracelet from his wrist and with them still connected holding hands, there didn’t seem to be any issue, though Steve described how he felt like something in his mind had opened up again, ready. 

Once the doctor left, they looked at each other. “So… what do you think?” Danny asked. 

“Well, my dad’s at home, and your apartment is terrible. A hotel might be a good idea.”

Danny raised their joined wrists. “Maybe we ditch the zip tie before check-in. Don’t want to frighten the staff.”

*

After speaking to John, he sprung for a suite at the Hilton in a grand gesture gift for them finally sorting out their soul bond. They hadn’t even bothered to get any provisions for a night in a hotel; they went straight there from the hospital with Chin driving Danny’s Camaro while the two sat in the backseat.

They snapped the zip tie off as Chin parked the car for them and they held hands all the way up to the suite. It was gorgeous inside, with multiple huge rooms, and every window had amazing views.

They moved out onto the balcony, their joined hands resting between them on the ledge.

“So we’re doing this,” Danny said, breaking the silence.

“It seems like we’ve not been given much choice in the matter. I need to know what you’re thinking,” Steve replied, shoulders tense.

“Strange thing is, I was hoping to talk to you about it today. The case got in the way. I actually got some great advice last night from your father.”

“What did he say?”

“Pretty much just reminded me about the difference between the good and bad things that come in and out of our lives. Even if there is an element of risk when rolling the dice on something good, the odds kinda point to an easy decision.”

“So you’re… rolling the dice on us?”

“I mean, the things I was worried about - Grace, for example - haven’t really been an issue. And it seems even getting to know me better hasn’t put you off…?”

“Are you kidding? I keep having to hold myself back. If we kiss or anytime we flirt, I have to tamp down on what I want to do and let you move at your pace. I’ve been ready for months.”

Danny reached up to Steve with his free hand and pulled him down into a kiss that felt different with the bond sparking in the background, generating a heat between them that wasn’t just because of the sun beating down over Oahu. “This may sound weird, but considering everything that happened today. I really want to take a shower.”

Steve laughed. “How do you propose you do that when we have to keep touching each other?”

“Seems pretty simple to me,” he replied and tugged on Steve’s hand and they made their way into the spacious bathroom with its walk-in shower. There was a seat behind the frosted glass and on the tiled wall, there were three different shower heads, two higher up and one lower down, and a selection of luxury products on a shelf.

What might have seemed simple became a lot more complicated as they had to work out a way to stay connected while taking their clothes off. Their pants came off first, both using just one hand and kicking everything off once at the ankles, steadying each other in the process. They then stood close, facing each other and kissing as shirts were unbuttoned and thrown to the side, Steve removing his tee quickly while Danny stroked a hand down Steve’s chest. 

As the shower heated, steam beginning to rise around them, Steve pulled Danny under the spray, both of them trailing hands all over the other, keeping the contact they needed while exploring the way the bond was singing between them. It was like the bond itself had a personality and it was happy, telling them they were ready for this, that it was the right thing to do and that it was going to feel so good. 

There was a hum that couldn’t be heard, a tingle that followed behind their fingertips, a heat that rolled through them. It was more than just the pounding of the water on their bodies and the wet trails it created across them. They held each other tight, lips locking except to breathe, and finally, Danny felt brave enough to move his wandering hands to Steve’s cock, stroking down the now hard length and it made the SEAL gasp and rock forward.

“All this time and I don’t even know if you’ve done this before,” Steve said, adding- “with a man-” to be clear. 

“Not since college. What about you?”

Steve shook his head. “The male part is new, not so much the ‘act’,” he said and Danny realized he meant anal sex as Steve tweaked at one of his nipples. “I don’t have a problem with any of it though.”

“That’s good,” Danny replied, his hand still lightly stroking Steve’s dick, unsure what else to say. “Let’s see what I remember,” he decided and got down lower, the tile hard against his knees. He kept stroking Steve’s dick as he leaned in, tongue out and licking underneath at Steve’s balls before following the movement of his hand up the length where he could suck on the tip, the taste of Steve’s pre-cum salty on his tongue. 

Steve’s hands tightened their grip in Danny’s hair as he steadied himself, shifting on his feet a little as he enjoyed the feel of Danny’s mouth on his dick as it bobbed up and down, water from the shower mingling with Danny’s saliva and filling his mouth so much that he had to pull off and spit it out. 

He wrapped an arm around Steve’s hips to keep close and while the other hand pumped Steve’s cock, he took Steve’s balls in his mouth and sucked, his nose rubbing against the base of Steve’s cock.

Steve eventually pulled back while making sure to keep contact with Danny. “I’ll come if you do too much of that.” He helped Danny get back on his feet. “But it is definitely something I want to revisit another time.”

Steve reached for the soap dispenser on the wall, getting a generous amount on his hands before running them over Danny’s body, starting at his shoulders and lathering over his chest, scratching into the hairs and against his nipples then moving behind him to do his back, fingertips teasing at the cleft of his ass as he moved them lower. 

He got onto a knee behind Danny and continued to soap up his thighs and calves before returning his hands higher. From behind, he reached around to stroke Danny’s dick, big hands covering the hard length and fondling his balls while lips pressed kisses against Danny’s ass cheeks and then teeth bit into the flesh.

Bringing his hands back, Steve squeezed Danny’s ass, pulling the cheeks apart so he could see the hole and his thumb rubbed circles against it as Danny moaned and pressed back, leaning a hand on the wall for support. His skin felt like tiny pins were pricking at it constantly. None of it was painful, it just felt like he was receptive. It was a heightened awareness of every touch and every need he had to be with Steve.

The SEAL got back onto his feet and wrapped his arms around Danny from behind. The spray continued to beat down on them, hair matting against their heads and water trickling down over their bodies. “I think we should take this to the bedroom.” He reached past Danny’s body and turned off the water. The sound of the shower had been like a white noise grounding them in a bubble, without it there was an anticipation that filled the air and the tingling felt more pronounced. 

A blast of cooler air hit them as they opened the shower door. Danny felt his skin goosebump, the hairs standing on end but the electric charge inside him kept him warm. Steve’s hand on his wrist kept their connection as they carefully walked with wet feet on the tile floor but Danny stopped at the door. 

“Hold on. We don’t have any lube.”

“Is it weird that I’ve been keeping a packet of it in my wallet for months?” Steve asked, scrunching his nose up.

“Possibly, but if you hadn’t we’d have a problem right now so I guess your army ‘always be prepared’ training counts for something.”

“The Navy, Danny,” Steve growled but kept it playful as he tightened his grip and pulled Danny close again. “Say Army one more time and I swear-”

“What?” Danny interrupted with a sly grin. “You’ll punish me?”

“I’ll fuck you so hard-.” Steve squeezed Danny’s cock in retaliation and bit his lips before kissing him hard enough to force his head back. It made Danny wince as he felt a pull at his two stitches, and Steve pulled back apologetic, wrinkling his own nose up in return as if he’d felt it too. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment-”

“It’s okay. I’d rather forget, too. I don’t want this or bruised ribs getting in the way of what we’re doing here.”

Steve kept hold of Danny while he knelt down to fumble at the pockets of his discarded pants until he found his wallet and pulled the packet out, dropping his wallet again uncaring as he ushered Danny out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom. 

It was a king-sized bed, maybe bigger, and incredibly comfortable but that didn’t matter right now. As they crawled onto it, mindful to keep physical contact at all times, Steve kept Danny on his knees and made him shuffle towards the headboard. “Hands on the wall,” he ordered, helping Danny place them and widen his stance. “This should be better for your ribs and keep them still.”

“What did I say about that not getting in the way?”

“It won’t,” Steve assured him. “But the last thing I want is to hurt you.”

Using his teeth, Steve ripped the packet open and one-handedly squeezed the lube onto his cock, spreading it over the length and using his now coated fingers to rub at Danny’s hole before pushing a first finger in. 

It was slow, allowing Danny to get used to the feeling of it sliding in. He tensed but took deep breaths to relax. It had been a while but he instinctively remembered how to do this and let Steve’s finger push deeper inside him, then become two as they slowly fucked in and out of his hole, stretching it as they crooked and twisted inside him. After three fingers, Danny’s cock was leaking again and his body felt on edge and ready. Everything inside him wanted more and faster and closer.

Steve’s dick rubbed against his hole then pressed in, the head popping inside quickly as Danny’s relaxed hole opened up for him. Steve held himself back though Danny could feel his tension, wanting to just drive deep inside Danny’s body. With slow thrusts and rolls of his hips, Steve continued to let his dick sink in further and he marveled at the way it disappeared into Danny’s ass with whispered compliments in Danny’s ear that made shivering waves course through his body. 

Steve’s dick was deep inside him, their bodies flush with Steve’s chest against Danny’s back as they knelt on the bed. If the bonding process had a lightbulb moment, this was it. They stilled, just breathing, joined together, connected. Danny could swear his heartbeat was syncing with Steve’s.

As Steve began to gingerly move, experimenting with different short thrusts he gasped. “Do you feel that? It’s strange…”

“What is?” Danny asked, as he looked down at his own dick, hard and leaking and he thought Steve was touching it but he wasn’t.

“It’s like… I feel like someone is fucking me too. Like a… ghost sensation?”

“It’s gotta be the bond. I feel like my dick has something wrapped around it, it’s hard to describe. I know it’s not real but I feel it, like a memory but stronger.”

“Holy fuck!” Steve exclaimed as he began thrusting in and out with more confidence. Both men could _feel it_. Like a perpetual loop of fucking and being fucked, touching and being touched and it seemed to heighten the longer they did it. It settled in their brains, they understood and processed what the sensation was between them. Their link. _Their bond_. 

Steve reached behind himself to feel his ass, knowing nothing was happening there but feeling Danny’s reactions and sensations of what Steve was doing to him… therefore… doing to himself? 

Danny knew in turn it was Steve feeling what it was like to fuck Danny, the way his ass was tight around his dick, warm and inviting and rubbing deliciously. He could swear he even felt Steve’s feelings about it. The love and lust and desire… the want and the need. Which meant Steve could feel Danny’s in return. It was confusingly fucked up and overwhelming but utterly amazing. 

This was bonding. The ultimate sharing of everything between them.

Danny wanted to come. He needed it and he felt so good, so turned on, so on edge with an overload of feelings and sensations and yet he couldn’t reach it. The bond was holding them here, right on the edge as Steve fucked him hard, pleasure coursing through their veins like lifeblood but the bond wasn’t ready, wasn’t finished programming itself into their DNA.

There was something heavenly yet completely frustrating about needing to come and not being able. He could tell Steve was feeling it too. He could feel Steve feeling it in a feedback loop that made them both need it even more and desperately. 

They moaned loudly, their voices expelling some of that frustration as their bodies and minds linked up, finding a new rhythm between them, matching them completely.

“Fuck, I need to come, I need to come, I need to come,” Danny repeated like a mantra as Steve moaned out things like ‘almost there’, ‘so good’, want more’, ‘fuck fuck fuck’.

Danny grabbed for his dick, adding the sensation of his own hand to that of what it felt to be fucking, and moments later it was like the program in their heads hit 100% and he was spilling. Hard. Long. Strings of his own cum painted the headboard as he felt the way Steve’s cum exploded inside him, making him jerk in response at the strength of Steve’s orgasm. His vision whited out and his body numbed as he collapsed into a heap of limbs onto the bed, mixed up with Steve’s and unable to move. 

He didn’t know where he ended and Steve began. He may even have forgotten how to breathe.

“That was-”

“It was,” Steve replied. 

“Do you think it’s like that every time?” he asked, throat dry and voice rough. 

“If it is, we are going to have an insanely intense sex life.”

“I’m not sure if I can handle that,” Danny said. “But I’m willing to try.”

He heard Steve chuckle beside him and although he had a feeling of Steve’s amusement, their connection wasn’t as strong as it had been during sex. It was like a low background thrum that he could bring forward into full awareness or push away depending on what he needed.

They said a bonded couple had an empathic connection but the strength of the bond dictated how much they’d be able to know about the other, or how far a distance that bond stretched when apart. Danny lay there for long minutes contemplating how their connection would work in their lives, personal or professional. Just lying there, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed was the only movement. 

Then Steve rolled over on top of him again and said, “I can practically hear you. Stop thinking.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Then I’ll make you,” he kissed Danny and his hand squeezed Danny’s dick that was taking a surprising amount of notice considering just how wiped out he felt.


	6. Chapter 6

“That’s the last of it,” Danny sighed as he dumped the box onto the floor and leaned to stretch his back out. “Where’s Grace?”

“I took the last of her stuff upstairs so she’s started unpacking it all,” Steve replied. “Did you hand back the keys to your landlord?”

“I did. As soon as the last box of stuff was out the place,” Danny nodded. “He’s going to inspect it then sort out returning the deposit.”

After they’d bonded, they’d been looked at again by a few doctors who wanted to make sure everything was fine with them before they were cleared for duty. It felt to Danny like there was some vague form of experimentation being done, especially by the military doctor, but it had only lasted a week before they were told that everything was good. Plus, the week had given them a chance to settle into how it felt to be bonded as well as to get Danny moved into the McGarrett home since there were no excuses anymore. And yeah, his apartment really did suck and there were rumors it was going to be turned into condos soon anyway.

“So that’s it then,” John said as he wandered into the living room with beers and handed them out to the younger men. He lifted it in a toast. “Here’s to moving in.” They clinked their bottles together. “It’s going to be good to have the house full again. But my offer still stands for me to get out of your hair.”

“Don’t be silly, John. This is your house,” Danny said.

“It’s yours now, too. We’re all family and this is a family home.”

*

It was a beautiful night - not that Hawaii had many that weren’t. They were having dinner on the lanai for their first evening officially living together and they’d ordered in pizza since it was easiest around all the unpacking. 

“... then Tommy said soulmates can talk to each other in their heads! But the teacher said that hardly ever happens. Like zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one percent of soulmates can do that.” Grace still had way too much energy somehow and was bouncing between Danny and Steve’s chairs while John watched indulgently from the other side of the table. 

Steve pulled Grace into his lap. “And she’s right. It’s really rare and it’s not something your dad and I can do.”

“But I watch you all the time and you give each other a look and you don’t say anything.”

“That’s different, monkey,” Danny explained. “We can feel each other to a degree but there’s a difference between hearing someone else’s thoughts and knowing what they’re thinking. I mean, if you didn’t put away your toys when I asked you, and I gave you a look, you’d know what it was for, right? I wouldn’t have to say it out loud.”

“I guess.”

“But we can feel things from each other without being in the same room,” Steve explained further. “I could be in the living room and maybe Danno is in the kitchen but without him having to be near me I just _know_ he’s annoyed and wants to nag at me about something.”

“If you put the big plates too close to the middle they stop the blades from spinning. I swear, it’s not difficult to learn how to load a dishwasher properly!”

“See?” Steve said by Grace’s ear, making her giggle. 

“But… in school they also said soulmates can feel each other like… touching? Or what happens? Like, uhm… if one got hurt the other would hurt too?” she asked and her big eyes betrayed her own worry. She knew they had dangerous jobs, she knew they got hurt more than other kids’ parents might.

“That’s true, Gracie,” Steve answered for her. “It’s not as strong for the other person, but if one of us got hurt, like if I had broken my arm after we were fully bonded rather than before, then Danno’s arm would hurt too. It’s called a sympathy pain.”

“But his arm wouldn’t be broken too?”

“No, it wouldn’t happen the same. He’d just be complaining about it hurting even though nothing was really wrong with him.”

“It’s the only reason I don’t punch your step-Steve when he’s annoying me. Because I don’t want my face to hurt too,” Danny told her, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Grace, why don’t you and I clean up and maybe you can ask me some more questions before bed?” John offered.

“Okay,” she agreed and helped him gather up the plates and glasses and empty boxes before the two trailed inside the house.

“That was interesting,” Steve said. 

“She’ll probably have a million more questions that she’ll pepper into conversation over the next few months.”

“I mean what you said. You called me Step-Steve. Not Uncle Steve.”

“Grace thought about it this morning. She said since we were going to be living together now and we were soulmates that it made more sense to think of you as her stepfather, just like Stan is because he lives with her mom and they’re married.”

“But we’re not married.”

“She thinks it’s pretty much the same thing. I kind of agree.”

“Yeah?” Steve beamed a smile at him but didn’t take the conversation further. He reached a hand over to Danny’s and took it in his own as they watched the sunset. 

“It’s going to be interesting when we go back to work on Monday. How this whole pseudo-telepathy thing will either be great for us or drive us crazy.”

Danny smiled as he looked over at Steve. “If it’s anything like the way it works in the bedroom, it’s going to be both.”

They knew soul bonds worked to different strengths. Even among soulmates, some were stronger than others. They’d discovered shortly after bonding that sometimes they really _could_ seem to hear one another inside their heads even though telepathy was incredibly rare. Something apparently even eight-year-olds learned in school. That rareness had made them cautious, especially with the military involved because of Steve.

They’d made an agreement not to admit to the doctors the full range of what they could do and had made it seem in the various tests that they took part in that they were just… average.

They hadn’t told _anyone_.

Besides, it wasn’t like it happened all the time, it was just when they tried really hard to communicate like that. And they weren’t even sure yet how far apart they could be and have it work. They were going to explore it privately and tell appropriate people they could trust about what they could do but only if they needed any help. 

Steve grinned at him, squeezing his hand and then looking out again at the sunset. Danny could feel how relaxed Steve was, content. Settled. His control issues were eased by having Danny and Grace moved in with him, like he was complete.

The feeling washed over Danny and settled him in return. They shared so much now. But one thing Danny kept behind built up walls in his mind was how stupid he felt for not bonding with Steve straight away when they first discovered what was going on. The last thing he wanted was Steve to say ‘I told you so’.

Steve cleared his throat and drew Danny’s eyes, but the SEAL said nothing, just continued to watch the sunset with a satisfied, knowing smile on his face.


End file.
